An Early Meeting
by Lucillia
Summary: Sai meets Hikaru at a much earlier date. All he wants to do is play Go, however he's going to have to earn his keep if he doesn't want the Shindo family to arrange for him to be exorcised. Features Babysitter!Sai.
1. Divergence

Hikaru knew he shouldn't be here, but he couldn't resist the chance to explore everywhere. The box thing with the squares on it like the one in the house was in a corner. It looked just like the one Grandpa didn't want him touching except that there was something spilled on it.

&!&!&

Fujiwara no Sai didn't know how long he had sat in this grey silence within his old Go board. Outside, the scenery was not much better, as it was an equally silent storage shed.

"Oops?" said a small voice as something poked the board where Torajiro's blood covered his tears.

"Can you see it?" he asked, excited to finally find someone who might possibly see him and therefore allow him to play once more.

"Hewo?" the small voice said.

"Can you hear me?" he asked, hoping beyond hope that he had found another like Torajiro who had seen him, heard him, and had freed him from the board for a few years.

"Hear? Hear?" the small voice said.

"Oh thank you Kami-sama for giving me this opportunity." he said as he rose from the board, prepared to connect with his new link to the living world.

When he had fully risen, he found himself face to face or rather shins to face with a small toddler. There was no-one else within fifteen feet of the storage shed.

"You can't be serious." he said.

"Up!" the toddler said happily, standing up and holding out its arms.

It would seem that the Kami that had given him this opportunity had been serious as when he tried to return to the Go board, he found that he could not.

Grumbling, he wrapped himself around the child that couldn't have been older than two and joined with his consciousness.

Once the process was over, he found himself in a strange room standing next to a strange barred box that contained his new link to the living world. There were several odd strings going from the child to a machine that made odd beeping noises, and a tube that led from the child to a water filled bag on a stick. At one end of the box was a strange board with something written on it. All he could clearly make out was the name and age of the child in the box. As with doctors the world over, the handwriting of the author of this particular document sucked.

The small child who was 28 months old and apparently named Shindo Hikaru was awake, and based on his whining wasn't too happy with his situation. He didn't know how to comfort the boy as he wasn't very good with children.


	2. The Medium

"No" Sai yelled as he lightly whacked the small toddler that was trying to eat a spider on the back of his head with his fan.

In the two weeks since he and Hikaru had left that strange hospital place, it seemed as if he had spent his entire time chasing the boy around trying to keep him out of danger. There was no telling when he would get another chance at seeing the outside world again if his latest link died, and he'd be damned if the kid died before he got to play again. Considering the wide variety of dangers in this strange new world he had awoken to, it was looking more and more likely that the child would have to be extremely lucky in order to see his third birthday.

From the sounds at the front door, it would seem that the boy's mother had another guest.

&!&!&

Nomura Midoriko had a rather rare talent that was looked upon mainly with disbelief in this day and age. She could see ghosts.

The Shindo family had called her in recently because of the behavior of their son. The boy had mysteriously collapsed near an object that was said to be haunted, and his behavior had changed afterward. The boy's eyes would follow something that it seemed only he could see, he would react to non-existent stimuli, and on occasion he would talk to someone or something that wasn't there. According to all of the tests the doctors had run after the boy's collapse, he was perfectly healthy.

It had been the boy's grandfather who had put forward the haunting theory after he had remembered the story behind one of the objects in the storage shed in which the child had collapsed. Apparently the man's recently deceased brother had had a hobby of buying things that had been said to be haunted if he found them and the story behind them sufficiently interesting. One of the items had been a small, well worn piece of wood that was supposedly from a broken Koto that was said to have dated back to the Heian era. According to the story behind the object, it had been said that if you held the piece of wood before you went to sleep, you would be able to hear a ghostly melody as you drifted off. The boy's grandfather had tried it once, trying to prove to his brother that the story was bullshit, but he could have sworn he had heard something when he did.

When she was brought to the boy, she couldn't help but stop and stare. There was indeed a ghost. He was tall, he was handsome in an almost femininely beautiful sort of way, and if he'd been alive and she'd been twenty, heck even ten years younger...

"Talk about high class..." she said.

"Genuine Heian era if I'm not mistaken." she said as she moved around the ghost, examining him more closely. Ghosts tended to wear things they either died in or things they had been most comfortable in in life. The fact that this one stood in an almost relaxed manner as if he were used to his outfit instead of dressing up for the stage was one sign. The fact that the outfit appeared to have actually been worn on a daily basis rather than stored until it was used on stage was another indicator, as was his long and apparently genuine hair. The man had also picked up a small grass stain and a tiny smudge of dirt somewhere before he died. He would not have gotten those if the outfit he was wearing had been an exceedingly expensive costume.

The ghost said something to her, apparently cottoning on to the fact that she could see him. Unfortunately she could only see ghosts, not hear them. Her lip reading skills were only so-so, and her skills with ancient Japanese were almost non-existent. Fortunately, the ghost seemed to have picked up some modern Japanese somewhere along the line.

&!&!&

Sai perked up when he noticed that Hikaru's mother's house guest could see him. Perhaps the toddler had been merely a vessel to bring him to his true link to the world?

It was not to be however, as when he tried to leave Hikaru and possess the older woman he had failed.

Perhaps if he got his story out the woman would be willing to set stones for him, and he would be able to play Go much earlier than he thought he would.

With that thought in mind, he began his tale. The woman stared at him blankly.

"All I got was Fujiwara, Tutor and Emperor." the woman said, apparently to Hikaru's mother.

The woman either couldn't hear him or could barely hear him. Nodding to indicate that she had gotten what little she could pick out correctly he continued his tale.

"I got something about a rival tutor, a competition, cheating, and death." the woman continued.

He continued his tale to the point he found himself at.

"I got something about wanting to play more and someone named Torajiro." the woman said, comprehension dawning on her.

He nodded happily that the woman seemed to have gotten it.

"It would seem that he was given another chance because his last student was a talentless hack." the woman said.

He stood there stunned. Torajiro was not a talentless hack. While the man had let him play for him as a child, he had also learned from him. It wasn't like he had played _all_ of Honinbo Shusaku's games. That famous ear reddening move had been all Torajiro.

"His last student?" Hikaru's mother asked.

"Naito Torajiro, the historian." the woman said.

Huh?

"You'd better start saving up for some quality instruments. With a musician like Fujiwara-sama teaching him, that kid of yours is going to be going places!" the woman proclaimed.

WHAT?


	3. Chance

PLINK...PLINKAPLINKAPLINKA...PLINKAPLINKA...PLINK

Sai was in hell.

PLINKAPLINKAPLINKA...PLINK...PLINKAPLINKA.

Shortly after the visit of the gray haired woman who had been able to see him but not hear him, Hikaru's father had brought home an exotic toy that one of his coworkers' children had outgrown. The toy had a name that was exceedingly difficult to pronounce and had come from a place called America.

The toy had an admittedly musical quality to it, but in the hands of a two year old...

Unfortunately for him, little Hikaru had fallen in love with the brightly colored torture device. Listening to the child strike the brightly colored metal plates with the yellow hammer in whatever order his little heart desired was bad enough, but the sadistic designer of this particular toy had added another feature, the feature that was truly driving him up the wall. The toymaker who had created this particular piece had added a set of wheels, a pull string, and a device underneath the toy that would strike one of the metal plates from below as the toy was pulled along.

To make matters worse, Hikaru wouldn't go anywhere without the thing, and would pitch a fit every time someone tried to make him leave it behind.

PLINKAPLINKAPLINKA...

Hikaru's grandfather had picked him up that morning ostensibly to bring him to some important musical performance since his father was at work and his mother's friend had unexpectedly fallen ill. Instead, the man had brought them to the grand opening of a new Go salon.

Normally, he would have been positively euphoric over such an event, and would have been flitting from board to board before settling down and watching the game the owner - one Toya Koyo - was playing against the current head of the Honinbo school. However, Hikaru had taken to following him everywhere and dragging that accursed zai-zai-whatever along behind him, distracting him and completely sucking out every bit of joy he would have gotten from this event.

And people had wondered why he didn't like small children.

&!&!&

PLINKAPLINKAPLINKA...PLINKAPLINKA...PLINKAPLINKA PLINKA...PLINK...PLINKAPLINKA...

As Hikaru moved, a pair of jealous eyes tracked his progress. The child had something that their owner wanted.

Nobody was watching. He would be able to make his move. The fact that the child was moving towards him made things easier.

Closer.

PLINKAPLINKAPLINKA...

Closer.

PLINKA PLINKA...

Closer.

PLINK...

NOW!

&!&!&

A loud shriek drew Toya Koyo's attention from the board. When he looked up, it was to find his three year old son scuffling with a smaller child. The person who was supposed to be minding his son while he played was nowhere in sight, and it was rapidly becoming apparent that he had seriously overestimated his son's ability to handle himself in public.

Adding to his shame over this incident was the fact that the smaller boy was clearly winning the fight.

Akira was starting to back away while the smaller boy hurled abuse at him in a combination of the usual indecipherable toddler babble, language one would expect to find in a gutter - complete with at least one English swear word - and language one would find in the dialogue of a historical novel and struck him repeatedly with a yellow stick that was attached to a toy xylophone.

An older man in the crowd suddenly broke off from a conversation and raced towards the fighting pair, snatching up the smaller boy.

His son took that as an opportunity to grab the toy xylophone that he knew for a fact didn't belong to him.

It seemed that he would be having a serious discussion with his son when they got home.

&!&!&

Shindo Heihachi checked his grandson over for injuries, mortified at the language the boy had used. He knew for a fact that some of it was from the Heian era and that none of it was complimentary, because he'd fallen in love with The Tale of Genji in his youth and for some strange reason had been determined to read it in its original language after practically devouring a more modern translation. While he couldn't entirely understand what the boy was saying - as it most assuredly would not have been found between the pages of the beloved text - he could tell that the language was from the same era.

What the hell had that Fujiwara been teaching his grandson?

He barely noticed when the other boy took Hikaru's toy and ran off with it.

&!&!&

Sai stood there staring at Hikaru in shock. Ever since he'd discovered that he couldn't return to the Go board and that it would be months if not years before he could play Go again, he'd been cursing his fate and the other Go instructor that had caused it nearly a millennium earlier. He had been certain that a child that small wouldn't have paid attention to, much less understood what he was saying, but it seemed that his...lapse in propriety had consequences.

Little Hikaru had just repeated some of his most creative, explicit, and exceedingly vicious curses including the strange word that he'd picked up from one of Torajiro's students who had apparently learned it from an American sailor.

He had a sinking feeling that Hikaru's family was going to blame him for this. After all, children who were nearly two and a half years old didn't generally swear like drunken soldiers, and since it hadn't been his parents or grandfather that he learned it from...

He would have to behave properly from now on, and hope and pray that Hikaru's family wouldn't decide to bring a Priest, a Monk or a Miko home for a visit. He wanted to play Go, and that wouldn't be happening if Hikaru's family decided that it would be better for all concerned that he be exorcised.

&!&!&

Kuwabara excused his friend from the game to go deal with his son. He had children himself - though they were grown now - and had been in similar situations back when they were around that age. He was frankly quite surprised that something hadn't happened earlier. If his eldest were Akira's age and here right now, he would have started clinging to him and whining at least an hour ago, his youngest would have thrown a fit at least a half hour ago because he was cranky and tired. This kind of event was no place for a three year old, even a serious Go playing mini-adult like Akira.

Smiling fondly at a memory of an event that had been highly embarrassing at the time, he got up from the board and decided to do some damage control. Fortunately, the other boy's grandfather hadn't left yet, as he had his hands full with calming down a screaming toddler.

"Hello. And who might you be, little fella?" he said, bending down to the toddler in question when he reached the pair, and giving the boy one of those grins that usually sent small children scurrying behind their parents. The boy quieted down immediately and clung to his grandfather as predicted.

"Kuwabara-sensei, this is my grandson Hikaru" the grandfather said looking embarrassed and a little awestruck. "Go on Hikaru, say hello."

The toddler just stared at him from behind his grandfather.

"Tell you what Hikaru, since it's my turn, I'll let you play it for me." he said, giving the child a more reassuring smile.

"You don't have to...We were just..." the grandfather sputtered, looking even more embarrassed now that attention was turned to him.

"But I insist." he said, ushering the pair towards the board, after a nod from Toya - who had just pried the brightly colored toy that had started the fight out of his son's arms - indicating that he understood what was going on and would allow it.

He set the child in front of the board - guiding him into a rough approximation of the proper position - and put a stone in his small hand.

"Just set the stone down on the board wherever you like." he said with a smile. It wasn't a serious game, and he was pretty sure he was good enough to come back from whatever damage the kid did.

The small boy shyly reached out, and practically dropped the stone onto the board.

"Very good." he said smiling, as he returned the boy to his grandfather and turned back to the board to see how bad the damage was.

&!&!&

Sai barely noticed the Honinbo's face rapidly shift through several colors and expressions before he yelled "Toya! Come here and look at this!". His attention was entirely focused on the board.

Hikaru had done that by chance...

He was so going to teach that child how to play Go the moment they got near another board, risk of him swallowing the stones or not.

(**!**)

For the purposes of this fic, Akira was born December 14 in the year before Hikaru was born, making him about nine months older than him - as Hikaru was born September 20 - and therefore recently turned three when they met. Both children were in sixth grade when they met in canon and both were around twelve. I am not certain if Akira is actually nine months older or almost three months younger, it all depends on the cut off date for the grade in Japan. In California, a child born on December 2nd could enter Kindergarten a year before a child born December 4th. Both children would be the same age, but one would be a year ahead of the other.


	4. Home

Shindo Heihachi watched as his grandson toddled over to his Go board the instant he'd brought the boy to his home where he'd be watching him until his parents could pick him up. They'd left the Go salon with an invitation to the Toyas' residence for a study session, and a private lesson for Hikaru. From the way that Hikaru was moving, it was apparent that he was being herded to the Go board by that ghost who followed the boy around everywhere, rather than going there willingly.

Hikaru didn't look like he was about to try to swallow any of the Go stones, so he decided to leave it for now and supervise just in case.

It seemed that Hikaru's music instructor wanted to make sure that the boy was a well rounded individual, though the Four Accomplishments weren't as important as they had once been. Knowing them could be useful however.

He would get some paper and ink for Hikaru the next time he was out. It was never too early to start learning calligraphy...

&!&!&!&

Sai screamed in frustration as he threw his hands up in despair. It had been nearly two hours, and the child had yet to get the message, and had yet to lay a single stone on the board that the increasingly cranky toddler was sitting in front of.

He'd herded the boy to the Go board easily enough when the child's grandfather had brought them to his home after that incident at the "Grand Opening" of a "Go Salon". After herding the child to the Go board, he had spent two hours doing everything he could think of to get the child to start a game. He knew for a fact that the toddler had potential. The gods wouldn't have sent the boy to him otherwise.

After sitting there and listening to the child wail for fifteen minutes, he finally gave up and let the boy run off to the box of toys that the grandparents kept for the boy's infrequent visits. The boy promptly picked up a black and white ball that was nearly as large as he was, and started kicking it around the house, nearly destroying several valuable items in the process.

"No, you play with that outside Hikaru!" the boy's grandfather said as he snatched the ball away from the child who promptly started crying once more.

He hated the sound of crying children. It grated on his nerves a thousand years ago. It grated on his nerves more than a century ago, and it grated on his nerves now. He'd hardly put up with it with his own offspring, forget about putting up with it when dealing with another's.

There were some days when he believed that the gods had kept him around so long in order to torment him for their own amusement, rather than to allow him to find and make the Divine Move. Today had been one of them.

&!&!&!&

Toya Kouyo meekly stood there silently through his wife's tirade, knowing that any move he made to defend himself would be futile since he was clearly in the wrong this time. He deserved it for not properly supervising his son. The boy in question was sitting there crying as he nursed a black eye and a split lip. The Shindo boy had gotten in a few good blows before he'd managed to break up the fight. He'd tried to turn this into a lesson about the consequences of stealing on the way home, but he wasn't sure how much his three year-old son had understood. The child was extremely well behaved for a toddler, but the fact remained - as today had proved - that his son was a toddler.

"And another thing..." his wife yelled before launching into a lecture about how to properly tend to injuries on small children, namely that one didn't leave them for the wife to deal with when one got home.

Despite the auspicious start, today really wasn't shaping up to be a good day.


End file.
